Telenor highlights early SA 5G growth

INTERVIEW: Telenor emphasised interest in standalone (SA) 5G technology from the market was growing, pointing to rising demand by customers for developing pilots using the technology.

Speaking to Mobile World Live (MWL) as part of our Themed Week programme, Terje Jensen, SVP and head of global architecture at the operator (pictured), noted the technology was maturing gradually, with some use cases potentially scaling up from 2022, 2023 and onwards.

“Having said that, we definitely see customers actually asking for some of these things more in the pilot, pre-commercial setting these days”, Jensen remarked.

He noted use cases of SA 5G were “stacking up on the timeline” and the company was ready to provide the technology when the market asks for it.

In terms of benefits unlocked by the technology, Jensen pointed to its potential to open the door for network slicing and “mix and match network functionalities”, while offering faster speeds and more flexibility.

Since the beginning of the year, many operators started touting their SA initiatives. In January, SK Telecom claimed the world’s first SA 5G data session, and in August T-Mobile announced its national SA deployment, a logical strategy for its 600MHz 5G network. In addition, other operators across the globe have been trialling and deploying targeted SA solutions, with the aim of advancing their service offerings.